A Puppy for Christmas (with Parasitic Bonus)
During the holidays a lot of parents chose to bring home a new puppy for their little ones. How exciting would it be to watch your kids open their first present Christmas morning and out jumps the cutest, most lovable little puppy? Your kids will think that is the best present ever!
What we don’t think about is that we are potentially expsoing zoonotic parasites (transferred from pet to human) to our children. The most common zoonotic parasites are roundworms, hookworms, and whipworms. All puppies carry roundworms and if not dewormed properly, can shed the parasite’s eggs in their feces and quickly contaminate your whole yard. Children are most at risk for contracting these parasites because they play outside and have a tendency to put objects or dirty hands in their mouths.
Humans are aberrant (abnormal) hosts for these parasites and they may migrate to areas other than the gastrointestinal tract and cause serious problems. Roundworms usually migrate to the eye and cause either permanent or partial loss of vision. Hookworms more commonly migrate through the skin and cause painful infections.
There are things that you can do to prevent these infections. Promptly pick-up and discard any fecal material in the yard, make sure children wash their hands frequently, especially after playing with the puppy, after playing outdoors, and before eating. Make sure to have your veterinarian run a fecal analysis on your pet at least once a year and most importantly make sure to get your puppy dewormed at an early age and talk to your veterinarian about keeping them on a monthly parasite preventative year round.
--Dr. Wohlwend
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Dr. Wohlwend is a small animal veterinarian in Renton, WA and a regular contributor to Wag Reflex.
Justin on December 25, 2008 at 11:00 AM
ALL puppies carry worms? They are born with them? That doesn't make sense. ALL mothers carry worms? Maybe I read the article wrong.
Miguel A. Sucre on December 26, 2008 at 11:13 AM
I dont doubt themes in which am not an expert but I can tell you I and must of my family grew up with puppies even astray ones with doves ,rabbits, turtles, chicken and many other household or not animals and no one in my extended familiy got any serious sickness.
I suposse that being exposed to so many things made our inmune sistem strong so I do belive that so much sterile environment do any good to anyone but its everyones choice to live the way they belive in.
I prefer a childs smile and happiness because of a warm puppy than that of a cold plastic robot probably full of guns.
Big ol' Polar Bear on December 28, 2008 at 09:12 AM
Nematode (roundworm) species are very difficult to distinguish; over 80,000 have been described, of which over 15,000 are parasitic. It has been estimated that the total number of described and undescribed roundworms might be more than 500,000.
However, the only unexpected parasite that came with my first dog was my ex-wife!!!
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